THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 



yet been sufficiently considered, a fact as clearly proved 

 by the usual suburban garden as by anything else. For 

 an expanse of ground planted with flowering shrubs and 

 merging unmarked into the adjoining plot, to continue 

 indefinitely from house to house, may be charming to 

 look upon but a garden it is not; any more than the 

 marble arcade of a down-town skyscraper open to the 

 general public is a home. 



The real garden must be protected from the passer-by ; 

 must have hedge or wall, must exclude what does not 

 "belong," or cease to exist. It must be a place beyond 

 whose confines the weary world may go hang. It must 

 spell intimacy, and its full secret be known only to the 

 chosen; be a privilege shared, rather than a possession 

 displayed. The garden is not the place for a " crush," 

 for a fashionable reception, for a function, but for actual 

 happiness, real hospitality, and affectionate comrade- 

 ship; that social intercourse, in fact, which yields en- 

 joyment, not weariness. 



In any histoire intime of the days when the agreeable 

 assemblage of mutually pleasing persons was a fine art, 

 the garden plays its part. Infinite care and art were 

 expended to make these outdoor rooms enchanting, and 

 in arranging them so as to create a mingled sense of 

 possible solitude with the constant potentiality of charm- 

 ing companionship. A history of social life is to a large 

 extent a history of gardens, reflecting as they do to a 

 remarkable degree the characteristics of the society that 



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